


Sechs Augen, vier Farben, keine offen

by oh_how_droll



Series: Warnschilder hinter dem Spiegel [3]
Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Bisexual Male Character, Canon-Atypical Lack of Homophobia, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Double Life, F/M, Infidelity, M/M, Multi, Nice Boy Trying His Best, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23907511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_how_droll/pseuds/oh_how_droll
Summary: “Is it cruel of me to ask that of you?”“Is it cruel of me to ask that of him? Would it have been cruel of me to ask that of you, if I had rejected your advances in favor of him?”“Yes. Yes it is, and yes it would be.”
Relationships: Evangelin Mittermeyer/Wolfgang Mittermeyer, Wolfgang Mittermeyer/Oskar von Reuenthal, Wolfgang Mittermeyer/Oskar von Reuenthal/Evangeline Mittermeyer
Series: Warnschilder hinter dem Spiegel [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734082
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	1. The Fall of Man

# Six Eyes, Four Colors, None Open

_May, 483 IC, Odin_

Wolfgang Mittermeyer was achieving the impossible.

He and Reuenthal were alone together, and yet he was not happy. All the same, he was still there in the early hours of the evening, leaning gently against Reuenthal’s side, his eyes softly closed as he tried to smile. There was no way to avoid the thought that all of this was about to end, even if he should be ecstatic now. It was both tempting and tragically impossible to ignore what was coming.

The two of them shouldn’t even be together right now. With what was coming soon in Mittermeyer’s life, they should be moving apart, but habits were hard to break.

“You don’t have to do this,” Reuenthal said, the one to properly broach the topic for the first time tonight. “Family obligations are rarely within the interests of those that they fall upon.”

“Do you want to stop, then?” Mittermeyer responded, knowing that getting his boyfriend to be honest about his feelings was never easy. Soon after, he slid a few inches away, turning slightly to face the other man, as much as he wanted anything else.

“I meant that you could simply decline. Perhaps you are afraid of what you could be doing to her as a member of the fleet.”

“It’s far too late for that. Even ignoring how my father would react, I doubt the fleet would be agreeable if I ask for special leave for a wedding and return unmarried.”

“You have a desk job. I hardly doubt that the change in requisitions for coffee that week will send the whole fleet into disarray. If anything, you’re talented enough that they should thank you.”

“Weren’t you just telling me I should say that my work is dangerous? Aren’t you the one who says that women are deceitful?”

“Men can be deceitful as well, but we can at least settle our disagreements in other ways.”

Mittermeyer regretted even mentioning the topic. He even understood why Reuenthal felt the way that he did, but it was not something that was easy to get him off of once he started.

“Even if it was my father’s doing, I don’t think that she understands that. It isn’t as if I don’t also have feelings for her, either. I cannot simply… do that to her.”

This conversation had happened a dozen times in different words since Mittermeyer had (at his parents’ insistence) became engaged with Evangeline. She was a distant cousin of his that had stayed with his family for quite some time, and even when she was barely more than a girl, it was clear how she felt about him. She was kind-hearted and witty, with steely determination and a sad, tired heart underneath the shell that she showed to the world around her.

Let it not be said that Wolfgang Mittermeyer does not have a type, even across genders.

“If you are that concerned for her, then do you wish for this to end?” Reuenthal asked, sounding impassive as ever. It didn’t even hurt to think about being abandoned any more. Pain and loneliness were as natural to him as day following night.

“Of course not! If I could have told my parents about you when they were getting more and more concerned that their 25 year old son was in the military and seemed to have no interest in finding a woman… I wouldn’t be in this situation.” Mittermeyer said, wishing that he didn’t have to keep his feelings for the other man so secret. “On the other hand, I try to be an upstanding person, so I can hardly promise you that I’m going to be able to happily cheat on my wife with you once we’re married.”

At the best of times, Reuenthal was mercurial. He was terrified of commitment, and he had never been willing to say anything that would have made his relationship with Mittermeyer more real. The other man had grown to understand this quickly, and despite the fact that they were in the third year of their relationship, there were certain topics that he had understood were not to be breached, and he had respected them.

In this moment, however, he was flooded with regret. He couldn’t tell if he was jealous of Evangeline for getting to have the man that he wanted, or if some part of him actually envied the position that she would soon have. “I suppose you have permitted my dalliances with women in the past,” he said, moving to stand now. “However, Wolfgang… I hope that you do not expect me to play the role of the fool.” It was rare for him to call Mittermeyer by his first name, and in this case it was said in the softest tone his voice could muster, belying the pain in his heart.

With that, he lead Wolfgang to the door out of his apartment, for the alternative was showing weakness.

That was something that Mittermeyer was not afraid of, however. He barely even bothered to blink back the tears that came to his eyes as he felt the true weight of his choices weighing particularly heavily upon him. “Look, I don’t expect you to actually show up at the wedding, and I don’t know what… _us_ will look like afterwards, but… Please. _Please_ remember that you will always be close to my heart. If I wanted you out of my life, I would tell you.”

Reuenthal wordlessly watched as the other man walked away after a moment, his expression familiar and neutral even as he closed the door and turned away, walking directly to the part of his kitchen that was lined with several bottles of scotch. At first he reached for what was his ‘finest’ bottle, at least by the standards of a relatively junior officer, but remembering who had bought it for him only made the pain inside him sharper. He realized that he would be spending much of the rest of his night attempting to drown his feelings, and reached for his cheapest instead.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t made the women he had seen cry before. Some of them had been good enough to justify multiple visits, and he could at least intellectually understand why it was difficult for them to understand that the handsome, respected soldier who had borrowed their company wasn’t interested in anything further. It had never affected him before, their tears washing over him like gentle waves against a sandy beach. If anything, he sometimes found it exciting. Seeing Mittermeyer in pain, however, shook at something in his core. 

Perhaps, he tried to justify to himself, it was better if he did not have the other man to distract from his ambitions.

When that did nothing, there was little left but to sit alone and try to allow himself to come to terms with his feelings, as distant and atavized as they were.

* * *

Mittermeyer was taking the long route home, as he usually did after a visit with Reuenthal. It was especially important tonight, even as odd as it felt to walk alone through a park in twilight, because he doubted he could survive Evangeline asking him overly pointed questions.

His heart was not made for perfidy, and he silently cursed its weakness as he wandered vaguely towards his own home. Reuenthal had been right about everything, both what he had said in words and what he had conveyed while leaving unsaid. He didn’t have to do this. It was almost too late to back out, but there was still time, not that he had ever had to do it in the first place. His father was certainly willing to impose on him when he thought it was for his own good, but he wasn’t a bad man and he would have perhaps even let up on the pressure if he had actually said anything to hint that he wasn’t interested.

It was too easy to let comfortable misfortune befall him. He was something like a romantic, a creature of soft and warm constitution, which made him feel unsuited for Reuenthal even ignoring everything else. It hurt him to be unable to properly share whatever little witty comments he had made when they were together, to not be able to tell anyone just how he felt… It hurt to pretend that he was ‘normal’, to pretend that he wasn’t deeply in love with another man. That almost justified his behavior, at least in his own mind, because he had to tell that lie not only to the world around him but to the man he loved as well.

Even if his heart didn’t flutter as hard when he was with Evangeline as it did for Reuenthal, at least they would be able to be open about their relationship, at least they wouldn’t have to lie to their friends and family, and at least he wouldn’t have to lie to the person that he was with. He and Reuenthal had been ‘intimate’ (not that the word really applied) multiple times before Reuenthal had been willing to let him simply kiss him when they were alone and in private.

It was especially easy to worry about what the man he was perhaps choosing to step away from would be unable to give him now. Every time that he had managed to ‘work late’ and spend time with Reuenthal since he had become engaged with Evangeline, it had ended in either a cold argument like this night’s or in rough, fraught sex. In the past, he had written off the other man’s behavior as simply a different way of expressing oneself than his own, but now he had to wonder if this really was just who Reuenthal was. It was certainly the man that you’d think he was if you talked to any of the women that he often took home, but Mittermeyer had hoped that what he had with him was _different_.

He didn’t even know if it was possible for two men to truly share the sorts of feelings that he had for Reuenthal in a world like theirs that scorned them so heavily.

* * *

Mittermeyer eventually arrived at what almost felt like home, his eyes still somewhat red and sore from the trip home. Evangeline had just recently started living with him, and as strange as it was to think about how much less time he had spent with her than Reuenthal, he still felt more comfortable here than he had been earlier.

The sort of apartment that he could afford to rent on the salary of a relatively junior officer was hardly luxurious, but it wasn’t that different from places that he had been in his childhood, even if his own parents had been comfortably middle-class. Evangeline was reading on the sofa in the main room, and she looked up from her tablet when she heard the door open and footsteps approach. When Mittermeyer first saw her, she was smiling, but that quickly faded once she saw him.

“I knew that you told me you’d be home late, but… You had a hard day at work, didn’t you?” Evangeline asked, not that it was a massive feat of perception. Wolfgang was always such a joyous person, it was worrying to see him return to her with anything but his warm, beaming smile.

It was the first and only time that he had been to see Reuenthal after work since she had moved to live with him. It was a risk that he shouldn’t take, but he couldn’t muster the will to refuse when Reuenthal asked if he wanted to spend time with him, even as it had been so fraught. Even if it was only going to make what was to happen now even harder.

He wracked his brain for a second to come up with an answer that wouldn’t reveal too much, even that simple a question was more than he really wanted… He longed to tell her everything, but he would be ruining both of his happinesses, and possibly ending his career completely, along with Reuenthal. He would almost still do it if it only imperiled himself, but he couldn’t do that to his “close friend”. The former lie tasted bitter in his mind, even if that was what they were now, it seemed, and even that was being generous.

“I shouldn’t be as worried as I am,” he said, which was at least true. “But I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I may lose a close friend of mine.” Hopefully that was ambiguous enough to avoid what he actually meant without sounding too much like a lie.

Evangeline was well and truly familiar with the sacrifices that the Fleet asked of far too many Imperial citizens, which included her father, but she didn’t have anything to add that wouldn’t seem callous to the man who actually had to worry about losing his friends. “I don’t think there’s anything that I can do to help you, but I can at least make you something to eat if you haven’t had dinner.”

She placed her tablet to the side and stood up, walking up to Wolfgang and pulling him close for a gentle but soothing embrace. “At least you won’t ever have to worry about losing me like that.”

In that moment, Mittermeyer started to feel a little better. Maybe he really could do this? Maybe Evangeline was a better match for him? He didn’t know anything about himself any more, but he at least knew what was happening and could take solace in the fact that he’d still managed to find himself what would be a happy life.

What _would be_ a happy life, at least, once he could stop thinking about the man that he was leaving behind and just enjoy the simple reliability of being a skilled man in the fleet with a job that kept him comfortably safe behind a desk and a wife to greet him each day when he finished work.

* * *

The wedding was almost wonderful and with a sole exception, it was exactly what he had wanted since he was a boy. He had been bullied for being girlish when he was small, but he had thought that he had grown into a man who still held his heart close to his sleeve but had the fire and conviction to not let that weaken him.

Seeing Reuenthal at the reception made him realize that even if that was what he aspired to, it was not what he was today. The dark brown haired man was not that different from the outside, but Mittermeyer knew him well enough to know that there was none of the hidden fire that he had watched dwindle further and further since he had made the choice to choose his family’s wishes and Evangeline over whatever semblance of a life he could have shared covertly with the other man.

Stiff congratulations were received, and the other man handed over a gift as well. Mittermeyer immediately recognized it, and he had to struggle not to start tearing during his own reception. It was the bottle of scotch that he had given him for his birthday and that they had been saving for their next promotions, and it served as something of an official confirmation that the two of them were finished. At least knowing Reuenthal had helped him learn to be more adroit at hiding his feelings.

Thankfully, Evangeline was the only person there who seemed to notice that he was upset at all by anything, and he was able to brush it off well enough by just saying that he was emotional from the day. It wasn’t even a lie, it just failed to capture the enormity of what he was keeping hidden below the surface.

After that, the rest of the day went on as it was supposed to, and he was able to press the thoughts out of his mind well enough.

* * *

Mittermeyer managed to keep his thoughts pleasant as he enjoyed the first several days of his modest wedding leave, with the help of his parents he’d at least managed to rent a small cabin-like home near a small town well outside the major cities of Odin. At very least it gave him time alone with Evangeline to enjoy nothing but the happy married life that he had earned, stopping at a few little cafés in the town and going on walks and just relaxing together.

Once about half of the week had concluded, as the newlyweds were enjoying their breakfast, Mittermeyer saw a man shuffle in to a table just far enough from the two of them that he could watch the two of them without being too conspicuous. Even if he wasn’t in intelligence, he had enough of a sense of situational awareness to notice something like that.

Worse still, he knew exactly who it was that had found him on his leave from a glance at the other man’s silhouette.

He waited a moment, until after he placed his order for coffee, before excusing himself to go to the restroom, walking slightly out of the way to make sure that he passed by the other table on his way to the bathroom, and after waiting just long enough to not seem like he was following directly after him, the other man moved to follow him, both of them slipping into the same small restroom, Mittermeyer locking the door.

“What the _hell_ are you doing here?” Mittermeyer tried to growl and whisper at the same time.

Reuenthal just smirked back at him in that terrible, enchanting way that he had when he knew that he was too clever for his own good. “Weren’t you the one who told me that you would always keep me close to your heart?”

“For once in your life could you please just take something involving another person seriously? I want to see you again, but… Later, and once I’m not… What exactly did you expect? How did you even find me?”

“You’ve been posting pictures with geolocation data. A somewhat motivated twelve year old could find what town you were in, and once I knew that… I came here, and then… Call it good luck.”

“So, you avoided even walking past me in a hallway for the last week I was at work after kicking me out and now you’re stalking me?” Mittermeyer asked, in a tone entirely unlike himself. He had been ignoring the pain as scrupulously as he could until now, but it was leaking out now.

Reuenthal was the one to break slightly at the reminder of how he had hurt Mittermeyer. “Wolfgang, I… I suppose that time helped me understand how much I… That’s the longest time that I haven’t seen you without vacuum between us. I just don’t know how to handle this. I do not wish to resent your happiness —”

Mittermeyer interrupted the other man, pulling him closer, staring right into his deep, gorgeous eyes. “I still want you to be a part of it, even if I’m not sure what that will look like. In a way, how much I care about you is why this is so hard. I really didn’t mean to put you both in a place where I had to break either your heart or Evangeline’s.”

“And I’m sorry I don’t know how to be a person who could be what you want. I suppose it is too late for me to say that I’ve finally realized just how much you really have always meant to me.”

“Don’t say things like that, you’ll get me all _sentimental_ and then I’ll start crying properly and then I’ll have to explain that to Evangeline. It’s strange how despite everything you still can just make me forget my rational senses entirely… I think that means I’m still in love with you.”

Reuenthal blushed gently but paired it with a familiar biting smirk. “How do you _say_ things like that? You sound like a character from one of those romances for young girls that you read.”

Mittermeyer turned bright red now. “Please… I have to get back to her, but… I don’t think I can long to be without your company for too long. I just… Don’t know exactly —”

“I want anything and everything from you, even if I am greedy at heart. As long as you’re involved, it will please me.”

Mittermeyer closed the small distance and pressed a firm, loving kiss, one that was reciprocated by the other man, even if he was not particularly skilled at it.

There were other things that he could say, but they would all embarrass him further, so instead he heads off back to the table, hoping that it hasn’t been too too long to where Evangeline was upset… but he knew that hope was in vain.

Evangeline was at least well-mannered enough to not voice her feelings while they were out, and the couple even made pleasant conversation through their breakfast. She wasn’t quite upset, yet, she was more confused than anything else, but that was something that she could handle in time.

Mittermeyer couldn’t help but notice as Reuenthal just left a little money on the table and went out, not even keeping to the pretense of any other reason for his presence.

* * *

Before long, Evangeline and Wolfgang Mittermeyer were back in the small cabin they had rented, and it didn’t take long before Evangeline wanted and needed to address what she had just seen. “What happened back in the cafe?”

“What do you mean?” Mittermeyer asked, poorly suited to lying even by omission.

“When you went to go to the bathroom, you were gone for a long time. When you left, I saw another man leaving with you.”

“I don’t know what you’re asking me. I’m not responsible for everyone around me.”

“Damn it Wolf, I… Look, I recognized Commander Reuenthal from the wedding, and I saw the two of you walking out of the bathroom. I know what I’d think happened if I saw you leaving a public bathroom with a woman, and… I don’t like that I have to consider this. Is that… what you are? Am I just here so people will stop asking hard questions about a desirable bachelor?”

“I love you, Evangeline. You should know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be here with you as my wife if I didn’t.”

“You didn’t answer my first question.”

“Look, you’re too smart for me to… Yes, Oskar and I… have a history. Yes, I like men as well as women. No, it’s not as if we… did anything, I’m not going to be unfaithful to you on our honeymoon. We just had an argument because I didn’t want him to keep following me.”

“And are you going to be unfaithful to me after my honeymoon? I don’t know how to handle my new husband blatantly admitting that he’s…”

“A criminal, subject to dishonorable discharge from the fleet for his homosexual behavior?”

“You should know that I’m not going to report you. I’m not going to be so vindictive I let it end your career… and I care about you a lot. It’s just a big thing to take in. I knew they existed, but you’re…”

Mittermeyer interrupted again, the awkward pauses making him anxious. “Normal? Respectable?”

“You’re not normal, you’re the kindest man that I’ve ever known. I suppose… I don’t know anything about this, so… I want to learn. What was he to you?”

“He was my boyfriend. It wasn’t consistent because the fleet moved us both around so much, but we were together for three years on and off. I don’t know how much the fleet was just an excuse for him, though.”

Evangeline got quiet for a moment, just grasping at her own hands and trying to think through what was happening to her. What was happening to Wolf as well, she knew this had to hurt him as well. “Did you love him?”

He flushed red, blinking for a moment as he tried to figure out what he could say. “He had a very… troubled upbringing, as a child. He didn’t like words like that. But… Yes. Madly. More than I think he was comfortable with.”

“More than you love me?” Evangeline asked, knowing it was a selfish question, but she needed to know.

“I don’t believe in that question. I’ve been deeply in love with both of you, and I will just have to learn… How not to be in love with him any more.”

“Is it cruel of me to ask that of you?”

“Is it cruel of me to ask that of him? Would it have been cruel of me to ask that of you, if I had rejected your advances in favor of him?”

“Yes. Yes it is, and yes it would be.”

“I don’t know if I can change… I’m terrified by that. Even back there, at the cafe, I was so mad at him because he had been treating me awfully since we got engaged… And then when I was alone with him, I realized that I can’t…”

“Before I ask you to cut out any part of your heart that has touched him too closely… I would like to meet him properly and privately. I don’t know what I will say to yet, but I do not wish to hurt you like that.”

“Why, so he’ll blame you instead of me?”

“Because I don’t like the idea of hurting you or someone you care about so deeply. I don’t know if there even _is_ a solution, but I want to find one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> evangeline can have little a personality as a treat.
> 
> also! come for more Sad, Hurt Boys and stay for the author's obvious lack of experience writing straight people


	2. Meanstreak (In Three Parts)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > "You are not even two weeks into married life and you are already getting sloppy... If I managed to sneak up on you like that, be thankful I am not carrying an axe," said a man with a soft, deep voice in a playfully sardonic tone.
>> 
>> It was Oskar. Who else would it have been?

_May, 483 IC, Odin_

Thankfully, at least, they didn’t see Reuenthal again for the rest of the week. The topic didn’t come up often, either, for the remainder of their time together. Mittermeyer enjoyed his time with Evangeline so much, even if there were occasional moments, certain little inflections in her laughs or little glimmers of a smirk when he knew he was being stupid about something but cared too much about it… It was undeniable that they just made him think of times that Reuenthal had acted similarly.

This was almost a life that could make him as happy as anyone could rightly wish for.

It would be one without qualification, had he never gotten involved in a stupid, risky bar fight fresh out of the Officer’s Academy, had he never met Oskar von Reuenthal. Even bruised and worse for wear, the man had a certain charm, and he’d somehow ended up agreeing later that night to meet up with him again as friends.

He still remembered that second meeting so clearly, even if it had been somewhat awkward. At first it was just a difficult-to-ignore awareness of just how handsome the other man’s face was, of just how rich and pretty his eyes looked even in whatever shitty bar the two of them had been in that night, but as the conversation dragged on, it became clearer and clearer that he hadn’t even waited until he had known the other man for a full day to start becoming infatuated with him.

It wasn’t like it was the first time it’d happened, but even back then, he could usually manage to at least go a few weeks after meeting whatever witty, handsome man it was that walked into his life before he had to start actively trying not to act like a blushing schoolgirl.

Especially in a society that was as cruel as the Empire, it was hardly uncommon for self-discovery to be a difficult, arduous journey. That hadn’t been Mittermeyer’s experience, however. More or less as long as he could remember, he had known that he had feelings that he wasn’t supposed to have, and while he couldn’t begrudge himself for them, it still hurt whenever he had to be something other than the honest man his father had raised him to be. He knew he wasn’t supposed to have these feelings, and as far as he knew, he was the only one who struggled with these thoughts; the topic was so taboo as to make even openly condemning it difficult.

He didn’t realize his feelings weren’t something unique to him until after he met Reuenthal. Reuenthal had noticed easily just how puppy-doggishly attached Mittermeyer had gotten, and the two had barely known each other when they were alone together in his apartment, sharing what was good liquor for junior officers, and Reuenthal simply started stroking his hair like he was some pet as he told Mittermeyer just how clear it was he wanted him. That night was also the first time that the two of them were intimate, and even if, in retrospect, it wasn’t particularly good for either side due to, among other things, rank inexperience, the practical realization of just how right it felt to have another man so close to him made the memory truly singular.

As freeing as it felt at the time, and as weightless and perfect as he used to feel when he thought of his private moments with Oskar, thinking back to that time now only filled him with guilt. He had just finished his honeymoon, and he should be spending the first days that he was back at work unable to focus because he was thinking of his new wife, not another young man in the fleet. He supposed that was why his coworkers weren’t complaining even as he knew that he wasn’t able to get as much done has he normally would, and he wished deeply that they were right. It was so easy, after that strange visit from Reuenthal had ended, to go back to thinking only of Evangeline, only of the woman that he’d fallen for enough that he’d willingly chosen to marry her, that he’d even been willing to ask his parents for help paying for the wedding. Now that he was back in the Ministry of War, however, his thoughts focused acutely on the other person he loved.

He had to suppose that it was only natural. As much as his time at home and his time away from the fleet was focused on Evangeline, his time serving in the fleet was focused on Oskar. He had two halves, and it would take time for one to grow into a whole. He didn’t want to lose what he had with Reuenthal, but he hadn’t returned his text messages, and he hadn’t been able to find him after work, even if he waited for him. The open, uncloaked tenderness he had expressed in that awkward bathroom conversation had been so unlike him, it was hard to be surprised that he had a change of heart even if it also made him ache inside.

There was only so long to ruminate over these thoughts, however, before the day was over. He had at least made enough progress on what had been waiting for him when he returned to not need to work late tonight, and he was looking forward to being home with Evangeline again, to being back in a world that made sense and where he knew that he was doing what was right. He wondered if he could perhaps talk about what had happened with her, since she did know about what he was and what Oskar had been to him, but neither of them had acknowledged it since that one conversation, and he wasn’t sure if he would only be ruining what he still had by broaching the topic.

* * *

There was enough on Mittermeyer’s mind that it wasn’t entirely surprising that he would start to tune out his surroundings, which may have done something to explain how he failed to notice someone working their way closer to him in the small throng of people that were leaving the Ministry until he suddenly felt an extremely familiar hand clasp on his shoulder firmly, making him freeze up completely.

“You are not even two weeks into married life and you are already getting sloppy… If I managed to sneak up on you like that, be thankful I am not carrying an axe,” said a man with a soft, deep voice in a playfully sardonic tone.

It was Oskar. Who else would it have been? Wolf was lucky that the parts of him that wanted to punch and kiss the other man were more or less in equilibrium, because that was the only way that he managed to resist doing either in this moment.

“I am sure that your wife wouldn’t mind if you found time to start sparring with me once a week or so,” he continued when Wolf remained silent.

“I’ll ask her for you, I suppose,” Wolf finally responded, wanting to say so much but knowing that it was pointless and would only ruin his life further. After another moment of lingering, he simply started walking again, not trusting himself to handle the situation.

Reuenthal simply followed after him, walking near him nonchalantly, since he knew Wolf could hardly complain when they lived so close to each other. Once they were in the middle of the park, he sped up his pace slightly, slipping in front of Mittermeyer to make sure that he saw as he slipped away down a little-used side path that the two of them had found to be adequately private plenty of times before.

As fraught as he was, Wolf still followed Reuenthal. There were things he needed to say to the other man, even if his temper was winning out over his yearning. They walked a fair distance down the winding path to the bank of the river that ran through the park, sitting down at a slightly dilapidated park bench, which served as proof that even in the heart of the capital of the Empire, there were still places that got neglected, places that no one cared to remember.

Reuenthal took a seat, facing back towards Mittermeyer, a look of soft contentment on his face. “I missed you while we were apart,” he said, simply.

For once, it was Mittermeyer who was the one in a mood. “You could have responded to my messages if you had really missed me.” As much as he tried to sound angry, his tone was more hurt than anything.

“I work with highly classified information every day and even if no one knows about the two of us, I have no doubt that my habits with women have earned me a mark in my personnel file that says I’m a risk, just not enough of one to outweigh my usefulness. Do you have any doubt that someone reads every message I send and receive? Just because your _wife_ can get away with rewarding your clinginess and send you some promise of kisses when you decide that you’re yearning for her does not mean that I have the same luxury.”

“You could at least tell me when and where to meet you. You were perfectly comfortable doing that before.”

“The last time that I missed you, I dropped everything and even accepted an official reprimand when I got back in order to see you, and you sent me off after only a moment, so I assumed that you would prefer I give you and her time without my intrusion. At least be consistent, Wolf.”

“Consistent? _Consistent?_ Could you at least decide if you’re better than me or if you don’t deserve to talk to me before you say that? You’re the least consistent person in my life!” he said, struggling to stifle a yell. He had been frustrated with Reuenthal many times before, but he couldn’t think of the last time that he’d been this angry at the other man.

“Was everyone who knew you back in the Officer’s Academy was right about you? Have I been stupid this whole time?” Wolf said, struggling to keep his voice quiet enough that it wouldn’t be overheard from the main path as tears began to run down his reddened cheeks. “I know how you treat the women you sleep with, should I have known that you’d do the same thing to me? I suppose the only real difference is that because I’m in the fleet with you, it’s convenient to keep me around until you get bored! I wanted to believe in you, Oskar… I hope you know how much I wanted to believe in you, how badly I wanted to believe that you aren’t the man you think you are.”

Even if he was still furious, even if he was still only starting to let out all of the pain that he’d bottled up inside of him, much of it caused by Reuenthal himself, he still sat down across from him, trying to quiet his voice. “I wanted to show my father that I wasn’t… _broken._ I know you’re wondering why I agreed to marry her, so I might as well say it. I don’t know how, but when I went home last, he suspected me, maybe even suspected _us_. The fear got to me, and… I was tired of lying. Tired of lying to my parents when they asked if I was seeing anyone, tired of lying to Evangeline about why I stopped pursuing her, tired of lying to every one of my friends about everything to do with you. I… I…” Wolf stumbled over his words for a moment, just sobbing.

“I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep having to lie to everyone. I even have to lie to myself and lie to you! Look… I really do love you very much, Oskar. I know you always get uncomfortable whenever I say anything nice about you, whenever I admit that I care about you, whenever I actually express my feelings. That’s… That’s the lie I hated the most, not getting to just tell you what you meant to me all the time, because it made me _scared_ , Oskar. It made me scared that maybe you just spent time with me because I was a decent enough friend and a decent enough lay. It made me scared that maybe I’d try to find you one day and you’d have decided that you deserved to suffer so you’d asked for reassignment to some suicidal far-patrol on the other side of the Corridor!”

Reuenthal had remained stiff-postured as the man he loved was so clearly pouring his heart out, his face tightening into a pained grimace. He hurt so acutely inside, but his childhood had taught him well that he did not deserve to express his emotions. No matter what he did, he knew it would hurt someone. He had ruined lives just by being born, and if he became upset, that would simply prove that he was like his father. By the end of Mittermeyer’s explanation, his knuckles were white and his eyes shut as he struggled not to shed tears. “You deserve better than me, even if I could give you what you want. I always expected that I would be the one to ruin this, but I suppose you seeing that I am not good enough and deciding to marry someone who is worth your time was always a way it could end.”

“I can’t… I don’t know what I want, I still don’t know… I mean, I’m happy when I’m with her, but the moment I think of you, the moment I think of the idea of being apart from you… I _hurt._ I… If I was in a world where I didn’t have to be scared, where I could just be who I am, where I didn’t have to keep track of all of the stupid lies and secrets that I had to tell, where I could just convince you to accept that I want… There’s nothing I want more than to be able to be yours, Oskar. I don’t want you to leave. I don’t…” Wolf walked closer to the table, leaning over it slightly and taking Reuenthal’s hands into his own. “I really don’t want this to end.”

This finally broke Oskar, and for the first time without the help of alcohol, Wolf saw him start to cry. “I hurt everyone I care about. I do not think that you will be able to fix that about me, and I suggest that you do not try.”

“Oskar, I could barely work today because of how much I was thinking about you! Even during my own damn wedding, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wanted to walk down the aisle myself and see you standing at the altar in your dress uniform, looking as perfect and handsome as you always do. I know that’s impossible, but… I’m not like you, I’m sentimental enough that it’s a struggle to only want things that are possible,” Wolf said, exhaling hard. At this point, he was more exhausted than anything else.

“Even if you do hurt me again, let me make the choice of how to handle it. Trust me enough to believe that I can decide how I feel about you myself. If you’re willing to grant me that, then… If it wasn’t obvious enough from how I’m acting, I still.. I still want to be with you. We have things we need to work out, but if you are willing to stop trying to fall on a sword to save me, I would very much like to get away from this bench and the muck it’s sinking into, take off my damn jacket and boots, and spend some time with a man who I’ve been missing very badly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is shorter than I really meant for it to be, but at least it's only been... two months?
> 
> it is an inviolable law of physics that Wolfgang Mittermeyer Must Suffer. tragically, I am powerless to stop this.
> 
> hopefully it is less than two months before the next chapter, where there's a chance of good things happening!
> 
> the chapter title is from [one of El-P's instrumental pieces](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE93GVFPh2E)


	3. Please Leave (Yesterday)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > "Real life? You wound me, dear comrade mine." Reuenthal quipped, not turning to face Wolf, which just made him fear that he was in pain and trying to hide it. "If you think last night was just a dream, then you have to at least admit you _enjoyed_ the dream, didn't you?"
>> 
>> "It was _you_ , of course I enjoyed it. That's not what I mean, it's just… I need to be able to trust that you won't keep asking me for things that I can't give you, because… you have this way of making me give you anything and everything you want."

_Late May, 483 IC, Odin_

Wolfgang had turned his phone off as he walked home without even sending a message to his new wife. He didn’t want to think of her in that moment, since that would only lead to guilt and anxiety and shame ruining his attempt to at least salvage some sort of happiness out of what he once had with Reuenthal. He had tried to put some boundary on what he was willing to do with the other man, to at least try to limit his infidelity to an emotional level, but Reuenthal’s drinking habit was contagious, and once his inhibitions were lowered, it was impossible for him to resist temptation. At first, he decided that he would stay for more than the few hours he could at least try to play off as a late night as work, which quickly turned into staying the night with the man he loved, and from there it was hard to ignore how strong Oskar’s appetites were. Even after he had been so upset, he couldn’t really resist the desire to experience… special closeness with him once he was in Reuenthal’s arms, feeling him press into his back with a familiar mixture of need and playfulness.

He awoke to the wonderfully familiar sound of Reuenthal’s alarm, some deeply obscure and frantic piano arrangement that he could never remember the name of. His head was a little sore from his drinking the night before, but it wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to that when he tried to keep up with Oskar’s pace, and if anything, it served as another reminder of what he hadn’t lost. He slowly opened his eyes with only mild reluctance, knowing that Oskar was awake if from nothing else than the idle way that he liked to stroke his hands across Wolf’s broad, fit chest when the two of them were in bed together.

Reuenthal reached away to turn off the alarm as he saw that his boyfriend was awake, and Wolf whined gently when he pulled away.

“Gods,” the dark haired man mused, “you really have missed me. It is flattering, if nothing else.”

“I only made that sound because you’ve been working in the Ministry for years and yet you still insist on setting your alarm like you have to go on patrol at dawn,” Mittermeyer responded, a little smirk on his face. This was a conversation they’d had countless times before, and it was pleasant to slip back into the good times.

“Not all of us manage to be as unburdened as you are, Wolfgang,” Reuenthal responded.

Unburdened? Really? It wasn’t as if Oskar’s life was easy, but he was able to be so comfortable with what he was. He was entirely willing to ignore the pressures around him to marry a woman and be _normal_.

He winced softly, and Reuenthal looked apologetic in return. 

The other man was able to recognize that this was not a topic that he should handle lightly, and that he should let the subject rest for the moment so that he could at least delay the time until he ruined the only relationship that he had ever really cared about.

Still, they could only delay starting the day for so long before it is at least time to make breakfast, with Reuenthal starting to cook and Wolfgang soon following out to sit with him after brushing his teeth and getting dressed again.

Scrambled eggs and bacon are a fairly bare-bone meal, but it was nice to just get to spend time together like this again, with Wolf sitting and making idle chatter while the other man cooked, getting lost enough in the moment that he didn’t think twice before he turned on his phone so that he could scroll through his social media feeds.

That was a mistake, he realized, as soon as the notifications started pouring in. Evangeline had called him over and over during the night, and the text messages that she had left took on an increasingly worried and even pleading tone. Seeing this put the new reality of his life into a fuller perspective, and he was now aware more acutely of the new responsibilities that he had to bear, and the way that he couldn’t thoughtlessly do things just for himself in the way that he had last night.

There wasn’t any way out of it: he had betrayed his wife and cheated on her last night. The despicability of what he had done weighed heavily on his shoulders now that he was actually thinking about how she must have felt, worrying if there was some emergency in the fleet that was keeping him and might mean that he was about to be put in harm’s way without her even knowing ahead of time… and also being acutely aware of the fact that she knew about Reuenthal. Did she realize that he had betrayed her?

“Oskar, I… I don’t know if I can stay for breakfast. Eva’s worried about me, and… I need to go be a good husband for her.” Wolf said, trying his best to keep himself calm.

“You’re an important young up-and-coming officer, I’m sure that you can explain it away with important work requiring you to stay the night in the office. In any case, you’ll be better equipped to face her if you’ve had a meal.”

“I can’t let you talk me into things like this anymore, I have a wife to think about. I still want to spend time with you, don’t think that I don’t, I just… I can’t let myself get wrapped up in the moment and just ignore her. I need to work out something with both of you, some way to… Get the time I need with you, but without ruining what I have with her, either. I can’t forget about my real life.”

“Real life? You wound me, dear comrade mine.” Reuenthal quipped, not turning to face Wolf, which just made him fear that he was in pain and trying to hide it. “If you think last night was just a dream, then you have to at least admit you _enjoyed_ the dream, didn’t you?”

“It was _you_ , of course I enjoyed it. That’s not what I mean, it’s just… I need to be able to trust that you won’t keep asking me for things that I can’t give you, because… you have this way of making me give you anything and everything you want.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I do not understand why that responsibility falls on me. Shouldn’t you be the one to set the boundaries of what you are and aren’t willing to do? Out of the two of us, I doubt that anyone would argue that I am far more of a blackguard.”

By this point in the conversation, the meal was done and the two of them began trying to eat as best as they could, but it was impossible to fully ignore what was hanging over them.

“I know you don’t think much of women, but Eva is a reasonable person, and I’m sure if we just… had a conversation, it’d all work out. There has to be something we can all be happy with,” Wolf said, with a tone that had far more hope than conviction in it.

“I fail to see, even ignoring that we’d both be directly incriminating ourselves in matters that would likely send both of us to the frontier for hard labor, what there is to gain by telling her. I would hope you have better taste in partners than to marry someone who would actually be willing to accept you openly cheating on them with a man of ill-repute like myself, although your continued fascination with me does give me cause to question that. I think we both know that you have a distinguished future ahead of you in the fleet, and if you want to survive it, you’ll have to learn to keep secrets at some point.”

Wolf hated hearing something so strongly opposed to everything he wanted to be as a man from someone that he loved, but he hated even more that he saw that Reuenthal undeniably had a point. The thought made him want to run away, made him think more seriously about the idea of breaking things off fully with the other man and just having Eva be enough for him, since he could at least trust her not to encourage the worst in him like Oskar did.

For once, Mittermeyer was able to just leave Reuenthal’s apartment without drawing it out, the duty he owed his wife giving him one of several reasons to not try and pry a goodbye kiss out of the other man and just head out, making sure that he brought his work bag with him and doing his best to take a moment and use the mirror in Oskar’s bathroom to straighten out his clothes from the previous day as much as possible before walking out with a fairly simple goodbye, neither man knowing exactly what sort it would end up being in the long term.

* * *

The sun was barely over the horizon, and Wolfgang felt the coiled hum of activity that signified early morning all around him, but rather than enjoying the pleasantly cool morning air, the short walk back to his own home a few streets away from Reuenthal’s seemed to stretch out as space itself became non-linear in a mirror of the way that a ship’s FTL drives functioned, the sidewalk stretching out and seeming to demand he cover what felt like light-seconds of distance at the very least.

There was one distinct advantage to how early Reuenthal woke up in the morning: there was every chance that Eva would still be asleep when he got home, and that might at least make it easier for him to explain away what was happening. At least it would give him more time to think of what he could say that wouldn’t be too much of a lie for him to manage but wouldn’t make the situation with his wife too untenable.

Soon enough, he was climbing the stairs up to the second floor of the fairly modest apartment building he lived in with his wife. Unlike Reuenthal, he opted to live in a private apartment that he spent his salary on rather than living in officer housing itself, but it was close enough to the Ministry of War and its associated apparatus that the vast majority of the inhabitants were connected to the fleet, directly or otherwise. Still, that meant that there were enough people already up and around at this hour for him to worry about what they thought about seeing him coming home so early in the morning. He had to hope that they would think what Reuenthal said they would, but he could never quite shake the paranoid fear that hung over him as a sort of personal miasma until he tried to quietly unlock the electronic locks in the door with his phone before doing his best to slip the door open.

Wolf’s heart had started to sink as soon as he had seen through the windows that the lights were on inside already, and his fears were confirmed once he opened the door and saw Eva sitting on the couch, not looking as if she had slept at all the night before. Her eyes were red and sore-looking, and he was able to watch her flash from panic at seeing someone trying to open the door to sudden relief as she saw that it was her husband.

“Wolf… Thank the gods that you’re alright!” Eva said, in a tired, worn tone of voice that sounded as if she had been crying. At least for this moment, though, she was focused more on the fact that she didn’t have to keep worrying about what had happened to her husband, that she at least knew that he was okay enough to be home with her, and that allowed her to loosen at least one of the layers of tightness that were coiled up around her chest.

“I… I’m sorry that I didn’t get a chance to tell you what was happening. I really don’t like making my wife worry about me.” Wolf was trying his best to simply not engage with either truth or fiction in this moment, not wanting to start lying this quickly, but knowing that he couldn’t just share the truth of what happened.

“If you don’t like making me worry, you could at least send me a message. I… I’ve heard stories from friends of mine about what can happen to men in the fleet… They’ve had husbands that just disappear off on some deployment and they don’t even properly find out what has happened to them until they get a letter from the Ministry about their next-of-kin benefits. I was terrified that the best I could hope for was a short ansible call with you telling me you’d been reassigned on an emergency basis to the front.”

“I suppose you can take solace in the fact that I’m much more useful to the fleet here on Odin than I would be on the front, at least… Well, depending on what the war plan looked like, they might need more serious logistical capacity on Iserlohn, but…” Wolfgang trailed off, realizing that he probably shouldn’t share potentially sensitive information that would at best do nothing to soothe Eva’s fears and perhaps could make them far worse. “Anyway, that’s not important, just… don’t worry about that. I won’t let anything like that happen. I was kept late at work dealing with a frustrating problem where, basically, a whole batch of fire suppressant systems that got delivered to Iserlohn Fortress as part of planned maintenance before an upcoming deployment were defective, and somehow the hot potato landed in my lap to deal with despite not actually working in procurement.” It wasn’t a total fabrication: there really had been a defective shipment of fire control systems that he’d been having to replace and ensure it wouldn’t happen again, but of course, that hadn’t been what had kept him away from her last night.

“And could you not at least take a little break to tell me that you’d be working so late? I don’t want to be too much of a problem, and I understand that I did marry someone in the fleet, but… I’ve never lived around so many people, and… I’d be lying if I said that I felt entirely comfortable being alone that long, not knowing when you’d be back.”

“My phone ran out of power and I didn’t notice until this morning. I didn’t finish trying to talk to one of the engineers at the supplier until 3 AM because they conveniently only work on Phezzani time, and I didn’t want to wake you up by stumbling in here and falling into the bed.”

“Where’d you sleep, then? I can’t imagine the floor under your desk at the Ministry is very comfortable. Even if I had been able to sleep last night, I would rather have you wake me up and sleep at home with me than have you suffering alone for my sake.”

Mittermeyer flushed a little at the question, not sure what he could possibly say that wouldn’t raise more questions, and eventually settling on at least giving her the partial truth. “An old friend of mine was working late with me, I ended up going and sleeping at his place.” 

The way those words made Eva immediately furrow her brow with a look somewhere between disgust and distress provided a sort of immediate feedback on whether or not it had been a good idea to say that, landing squarely in the dissentient. “Wolf…” was all that she managed to say at first, equal parts sad and scared. “I… I haven’t forgotten what you told me on our honeymoon. I hate having to ask this question, but… Was it Reuenthal?”

Wolf couldn’t help but flinch as he understood the full implications involved in the question, responding with a short nod in the affirmative, too miserable to find words in the moment.

“I need you to tell me exactly what you did last night, and… I want you to know how hard it is not feeling like I can trust the man I just married, so… _Please_ don’t lie to me, please don’t make it worse.”

He had almost managed to navigate the situation without having to admit to anything, he had tried to do what Oskar had told him, but it hadn’t worked. He wasn’t sure if he detested lying so much because it was something he was so bad at, or if he was so bad at it from a lack of practice, but it didn’t really matter in the moment, when he knew that a little lie would let everyone be happier, but just couldn’t find it in himself. He stayed quiet for a long moment, not making the situation any less suspicious, starting to blink more as he struggled to not start crying as he felt the entire world he had crashing down around him.

“I did work late, but it wasn’t until three, it wasn’t even completely dark yet when I left, and… He found me when I was leaving the Ministry, we started talking, and I… I missed him. I… He’s my best friend, even ignoring anything else, so I wanted to get to talk to him for a while, so I agreed to go back to his apartment and have a chat. That’s all I wanted it to be, I just wanted… I still love him, and I thought that I could be happy just getting to be friends, but then I shared a few drinks with him, and then I decided that I had to stay the night, just because I didn’t want you to see me coming home obviously drunk, and then…”

Eva paled aggressively, reaching out and putting her arm on Wolf’s, but the sensation of her touch was more tender than anything else. “Are you… Wolf, don’t say yes just because you think it’ll make me less upset with you, but… Did he… take advantage of you? If he did, I don’t care about what it will do to him, I’m going to the police. You’re not a woman, they might actually care.”

“Does it really matter? Even if he did, I still made the choice to go to him because I wanted to spend time with him instead of you… But no, he didn’t. I was a little bit drunk, but not enough that I didn’t know what was going to happen if we ended up sharing a bed, and I… I wanted him. I wanted him so badly, I wanted to… I just wanted to feel like I could still have that part of myself.”

The momentary fear and sympathy that had rushed through her when she had thought her husband was saying that Reuenthal had taken advantage of him just made his admission hurt sharper when she heard it.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Even ignoring the deviancy, I don’t find my husband telling me ‘I only cheated on you because I wanted to’ very reassuring for the health of my marriage. I can’t even be happy that I don’t have to worry about you slipping off your ring and going after random women you see, because instead I have to try to accept that my husband is also in love with some dangerous, clearly unwell invert that has an unhealthy obsession with him and stalks us when the mood strikes him.”

“Reuenthal is… I don’t think he’s that dangerous, really. He knows that I’d never forgive him if he did anything to you.”

“The last time I saw him was when he had stalked you to the point of finding where we were on our honeymoon so that he could watch us together. I know you… like him, but… I can’t help but feel like there’s every chance that he’ll just show up here someday and try to shoot me because he doesn’t like the competition.” She paused for a long moment, her breathing ragged as she started crying, having pulled away from Wolf again and seeming to try to be as far from him as possible while on the same small couch.

“I… I don’t think I can handle thinking about this with you here trying to defend him like that. I think I need some time alone to think about… What I’m going to do. I’d go back to your parents’, but they’re involved, too, and I don’t want to start rumors about us this soon, so… I have to ask you to stay somewhere else for a little while.”

“Eva, I’m…” Wolf wanted to apologize, but he couldn’t think of anything that he could say that would be anything more than a hollow bromide. “I don’t exactly have anywhere else to go, either.”

“Please… Wolf, don’t stay with him. Just, I don’t know… Get a hotel room for a few nights, and I’m going to spend a long while thinking about this. I… I really want to still be in love with you, even though I don’t know how much I can trust you any more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, apparently this is the release schedule for my writing. I can't say I'm _happy_ with the idea of only providing a single chapter every other month, but I suppose that's better than not writing at all.
> 
> anyway, I've already started on Chapter 4, so I hope that there's a chance I can get something out on a bit more reasonable cadence next time, but I probably shouldn't make promises like that again.
> 
> the title comes from [another El-P instrumental piece, this time off of his jazz project](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rlloCse5Bs)
> 
> thanks to natsinator for the beta read! feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (@oh_how_droll) or on Tumblr (@oh-how-droll) :)


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